Conveyor chutes are typically installed in multi-story buildings such as hotels, hospitals, high-rise condominiums and the like for conveying trash, recyclables or linen items from one or more upper floors to a lower floor within the interior of the building. Unlike what are commonly referred to as “debris chutes”, which are structures which are mounted along the outside of a building temporarily for use during construction, demolition or renovation to conduct construction debris downwardly along a path which is located predominantly or entirely on the exterior of a building, conveyor chutes of the type to which the present invention relates are permanent fixtures and are located substantially entirely inside of a building to provide a conduit having a substantially vertically oriented central bore through which objects may conveniently be transported by gravity from one or more upper floors of a building to a basement, or other lower floor, of the building. Such conveyor chutes sometimes discharge into a sorting device or a bin disposed adjacent a terminal end of the conveyor chute. Such conveyer chutes are sometimes installed inside fire-rated shafts, especially where local codes may so require, and are sometimes installed next to elevators. Access doors are typically provided on the chute at each upper floor to allow objects to be loaded into the chute for transport while preventing such objects from being ejected from the conveyor chute when the door is closed. In some cases, such access doors may be associated with a control panel which enables users to designate the nature of an object being loaded so the object can be sorted appropriately by a sorting device.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,568,871 to Shantzis discloses a system in which a sorting device is disposed beneath a single chute. The sorting device has a turntable which carries a plurality of large receptacles, one for each category of waste, such as glass, aluminum, paper or garbage. A control on each floor enables a user to operate the turntable remotely to position the appropriate receptacle beneath the chute to receive a selected category of waste. The chute itself generally has a plurality of discrete sections which are joinable to one another to form the substantially continuous elongated bore through which the objects fall. As depicted in Shantzis '871, these sections are typically generally cylindrically-shaped with reduced diameter end portions which allow the lower end of one section to be inserted into the top end of an adjacent section to form overlapping joints which shed any liquid which flows downward along the inside wall of the bore from the inside of one section to the inside of the next without leaking to the exterior. The access door is generally connected to an intake section which has a generally cylindrical body from which a protuberance extends radially. The protuberance terminates in a portal which is ultimately fitted with a frame for the access door.
According to the prior art, each intake section is typically about six feet (6 ft.) in overall length and has a cylindrical body whose inside diameter is equal to the nominal inside diameter of the chute except for a relatively short portion at its bottom end which is slightly necked-down so as to permit formation of a lap joint with the top end of the next-lower section. A lower portion of each intake section passes through a hole in the floor which is surrounded by an acoustically isolated floor mounting frame which is bolted to the floor slab. A plurality of substantially Z-shaped clips, which are welded to the intake section about one-third of its total length up from its open bottom end engage the floor mounting frame to support each intake section such that approximately four feet of the intake section projects above floor level while approximately two feet of the intake section is suspended below floor level. An approximately four foot long tube of the same nominal inside diameter as the intake section has a lower end which is provided with a male connector in the form of a circumferential bead below which is a reduced diameter portion which has been crimped to form corrugations. This reduced diameter portion is of a sufficiently small outside diameter to fit inside the top end of an adjoining section. The approximately four foot long tube is joined to a shorter tube of same nominal inside diameter as the intake section and the approximately four foot long tube itself. This joint is facilitated by another male connector, of the same construction as just described, which is provided on the lower end of the shorter tube, permitting the lower end of the shorter tube to fit inside the top end of the approximately four foot long tube and form a lap joint therewith. The shorter tube is of a length which depends on the distance between adjacent floor slabs in a particular building. This length is selected such that the necked-down portion of the intake section mounted in the floor above fits inside, and forms a lap joint with, the top portion of the shorter tube.
Despite their segmental construction, one of the major shortcomings of prior art conveyor chutes has been that they make very inefficient use of shipping resources even when shipped disassembled as they are when shipped from a manufacturer to a distributor or from a distributor to a job site. Because the chute sections are hollow and are dimensioned to form an open bore which has substantially constant diameter throughout the entire length of the chute, they tend to occupy excessive volume per unit weight when packed for shipping. As a consequence, shipping costs tend to be high because the usable volume of a truck or shipping container is typically substantially fully occupied well before applicable weight limits are approached.